


Against The Warmth

by Jenwryn



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-01
Updated: 2010-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. </em>— Galileo Galilei.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against The Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> AU, set somewhere after 'Vincent And The Doctor'.

Amy sits on the front steps of 221B Baker Street – well, on the front steps of 221 Baker Street, to be fair, and the bizarreness of the house's numbering is something she's been meaning to take up with Mrs. Hudson – and looks at the hazy darkness of the sky above her. There aren't really any stars to speak of, obscured, as they are, by clouds and gloom and streetlights bouncing up against them. That Amy can't see the stars, however, doesn't stop her from _feeling_ them. Travelling, the way that she has; seeing, the things that she's seen; those are enough to change a girl, she supposes, and she's pretty sure that a familiarity with the night sky, as if it were her sister, all slid beneath her skin, is one of those changes.

Or maybe it had always been there, since she was a child, and only now is she distanced enough to recognise it for what it is.

She can still feel the Doctor's hand on her ankle, holding her out in space, as if it were yesterday. Can feel the security of his fingers, all fine-boned and expansive.

Annoying twat.

Amy doesn't turn, when the door opens behind her (blue doors; they're like the chorus in the song that her life is wound in). She knows already, from the sound of his steps, which one of them has come down to her.

She's only been in London a month. A little shy of a month, actually. The Doctor had left her here, after the art gallery, after Vincent. Had said he had something to fix, something about a man he missed. There hadn't even been an argument, really, though Amy had been more than ready for one – there'd just been him leaving her, with a babble of strange instructions, and then telephone boxes that rang at her peevishly until she finally gave in and answered one – and then a man called John, thank God, who'd saved her from the annoyance that was Mycroft Holmes. The Doctor had warned her about Mycroft, before he'd dumped her here with little but the clothes on her back; he might be awfully impractical but at least he has his priorities right when it comes to the terrifying entity that is political self-importance. He'd told her about John, too, except that that hadn't really been a warning, more a set of facts said in a wistful kind of tone, which she hadn't understood, until she'd met Sherlock.

Sherlock, apparently, and his brother too, of course, were _family._ Not her family, it goes without saying, but the Doctor's. Something about a time when he'd been stuck on Earth; something about a time when he'd been human, somehow. It hadn't made much sense, but ten minutes with Mycroft Holmes, and a mere four with his younger brother, had left Amy without a skerrick of doubt that they were, indeed, (a) absolutely barking mad, and (b) quite clearly cut from a similar cloth as her favourite travelling companion.

The younger of the Holmeses sits himself down beside her, now. He huffs a little as he does so, folding his long legs up beneath his chin, and resting his hands against his knees. The world's only consulting detective, he calls himself – he's rather amusingly fond of the title, and doesn't she know how to pick them? – and she leans into his warmth, the press of his coat already familiar to her. Neither of them speak. Not for lack of things to say. More because there's no law that says they have to.

Well, and even if there were; it's not as though they're either of them particularly obsessed with following rules.

Amy wonders whether Sherlock knows the names of the stars that London is refusing to show them, then remembers John, over breakfast one morning, regaling her with his tale about the solar system. She remembers, too, the way he'd looked at his flatmate in an evaluating way, as though taking the new knowledge about Sherlock's heritage into consideration, and weighing it for relevance to his stubborn refusal to save information about the universe beyond their own lump of rock.

Amy wonders whether Sherlock would know the names, if he had a little blue box of his own, instead of a blue door with bronze letters.

“When do you think he'll be back?” she asks, after a while, because it's better than the alternative question: _do_ you think he'll be back?

She doesn't need to specify the subject of her query.

“My family,” Sherlock says, in the bored tone he likes to affect when something actually bothers him for once, “has a habit of doing whatever it wants, consequences be damned.”

Amy glances at him pointedly, raising her eyebrows and letting her mouth curve easily into something that spans from accusatory to teasing.

Sherlock's lips twitch. “I do include myself beneath the blanket of 'my family', so there's no need for that face. I dare say I could blame it all on genetics, if I were that way inclined. Or nurture; though that might well be genetically-influenced, too. Regardless. He'll be back when he's back, Amelia Pond.”

Just shy of a month and he still doesn't call her Amy. It's as though he's spent his whole life refusing to be anything less than his full name (she likes the way it rolls off her tongue: Sher _lock_ , dragging and rolling the second syllable ever so delightfully), and therefore refuses to inflict anything less but that on the handful of people he can be bothered paying attention to. She doesn't really mind. Amelia, she thinks, is long gone, but Sherlock is somehow resurrecting a new version. Or maybe it's simply the fact that his voice is so stupidly attractive that she probably wouldn't care if he decided to call her Napoleon.

She grumbles, though, not liking his answer – particularly seeing as she'd already known it before she'd phrased her question – and presses her body closer to him. It's not literally freezing, but it's cold enough to provide justification for her movement, if she were to need it.

Sherlock's expression, however, when she looks up at him from the angle of his shoulder, doesn't appear to be requiring justification. His lips purse a little, though, and, after a moment, he moves. She thinks he's going to pull away, but he doesn't; merely shifts his arm, instead, wrapping it around her, tugging her in beneath his elbow and the heavy warmth of his coat.

When the Doctor had left her here, with his half-deranged family, she'd resented him for it. Hated him, a little, even. Disliked him, certainly, for going off and leaving her again. Worse, for always trying to keep her safe, which is, she knows full well, exactly what he's doing. As though safe were what she wanted. As though she'd have spent all those years mooning over him – as though she'd have left with him – if safe were what she'd wanted.

Now? Now she's still annoyed with him, obviously, frustrated and a little helpless.

But also, really not.

Because there's London. And there's John. And there's Sherlock.

And an awful lot of running.

Sherlock is moving his fingers against her knee, where his hand has curved, almost absently, except that probably nothing Sherlock ever does is genuinely absent. She wonders whether he's playing something, playing out a piece of music from inside his mind. She's heard him play the violin at least a dozen times since she'd been installed in their flat; heard him play badly, to piss off Mycroft, and wonderfully, as if he were making love to the very feel of the instrument in his hands. Amy had worked out quickly that he plays best when he's lost to the world, and that the only way he can play better than _that_ is when John is standing in the room, leaning back against the wallpaper with his eyes closed and his body moving, just a little, just a little, in time to the motion of Sherlock's hands, as though the doctor wants to listen so unobtrusively that he can become a part of it himself.

Amy doesn't know whether Sherlock plays the piano, though, which is what the sweet shift of his fingers feel like, soft and swift against her tights-covered skin. She thinks the piano might be a bit subdued for him. A bit organised, a bit predictable.

It might be different, though, to play the notes against the warmth of another person.

She leans into the music of his hand.

She can hear him breathe, in the night, as she turns her gaze back up to the hiding stars.

Above them, a window opens. Amy can hear the sound of a kettle just coming down from the high of its whistle, and John's voice wanders down to them, contentedly, with the information that dinner is ready, should either of them be that way inclined.

The world's only consulting detective flattens his palm out against her knee, thoughtful-like, and mutters something about it being a Friday, and yesterday's case closed, and so he might as well. Amy, who'd spent most of the afternoon spending Mycroft's money with the aid of a surprisingly companionable not!Anthea, is starving, but she doesn't pull away immediately; doesn't pull away, until Sherlock stands up, lifting her to her feet with him. She smiles, as he opens the door, but she doesn't rush up the stairs beyond the landing. She takes hold of his hand, instead, and walks them just half way up. Sherlock lets her pull him along behind her, a curiously tolerant expression on his face, but his eyes do narrow a little when she comes to a halt. Standing on the steps above him brings them to a level view, and she rather likes it. His eyes are lovely, in the light from the flat above.

“I think it means something,” she says, “that he chose to leave me with you. All the people in the universe, and he picks you, Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock's face doesn't really move, exactly, but something in his eyes does. Amy may not be the world's only consulting detective, but something about it confirms her theory, her belief that he would learn the stars, if only he had a TARDIS of his own. If only he were something like the Doctor. If only he could always avoid the white fists of boredom; escape it, evade it, in the twists of time and space.

“Hmm?” is all he asks. Only shy of a month, yes, but Amy is fully aware of his general dislike for having to actually _enunciate a question_.

Silly geniuses.

“Yes,” Amy says, and slips her hands to either side of his face, feeling the angular lines of his cheekbones against her palms. That actually does make his expression change, and so she kisses him, just the briefest of touches, lips against lips and breath against breath. “You know how to run,” she explains, and touches her tongue to the corner of his mouth; an invitation, a suggestion, a something else left open to his interpretation.

He's still looking at her, intently, invasively, impossibly interested, when she smirks, and bounds up the stairs to devour whatever it is that John – the gentleman, the sweetheart, and the surprisingly good cook, when provided with the attentions of someone who actually appreciates the joys of eating – has ready for her.

Over a plateful of rice, Sherlock says, “You're _never_ bored, are you, Amelia?”

“She's never _boring_ ,” John answers.

One of John's feet touch Amy's beneath the table, comfy and sock-covered; one of his hands grazes against Sherlock's thumb, beside the bowl of chicken.

Amy grins.

She might not be the world's only consulting detective, but she's always going to be right about one thing: it doesn't actually _matter_ why the Doctor left her here. She's changed. She makes her own fate now.

—

In bed, Amy helps John teach Sherlock the names of things in space; stars and planets and dips of colour.

Neither of them mind, if he murmurs his lessons against the warmth of their skins.


End file.
